“What do you remember?” Dakari pushes. “Was it Carlton?”
Jasper is silent for a long while. “I was walking home from class, and there was this busted-up teenager stumbling away from a fight…” His eyes light with recognition. “Pierce. They used Pierce to lure me away from the street, then knocked me out. I woke up in that cell.”
Dakari curses, and I grimace.
“I’ll kill him,” the Talcott heir vows, already striding across the room.
“Not until I’ve talked to him.” I reappear in his path, putting myself between him and the nearest door.
“Not at all,” Jasper corrects. “You wouldnae believe it, but Pierce… Pierce was the only person in that house who didnae treat me like shit.”
Dakari pins me with a look. “Could his memories be faulty?”
I have to admit, I’m beginning to wonder…
“Actually…” Lambert sighs. “Pierce…is the most tolerable of the Carltons. I mean, yeah, dude’s an asshole, but he did save my life once.”
I gape at the Winthrop heir, who just shrugs. “His sister tried to kill me. I figure he only helped because he wanted to piss her off, but I almost died, so…”
Leo’s expression turns thunderous. “Anthea. Did. What?”
The words are bitten out, baleful, and his hand has dropped to his grimoire where it rests on the table.
“She poisoned my soup at the gala where my aunt officially announced me as heir.” Lambert shrugs again. “Pierce picked a fight and ended up chucking a glass of wine in my face. He stormed out after ranting about how Winthrop was doomed ifthe best heir they could find was someone tainted with dull blood. The wine got into the soup, ruining it. I didn’t know anything had happened until I left the bathroom and found them arguing about Pierce ruining her plan.”
That is perhaps the worst way to save someone’s life, and Leo’s jaw clenches. “Fecking Carltons. He probably only did it to make Anthea look bad.”
“I know that,” Lambert admits. “But since Kyrith wants him in her polycule, I figured I should point out he’s not a total dick, at least, not all the time.”
I open my mouth to object that I don’t want Pierce, but Jasper nods, cutting me off.
“He used to sneak down and fence with me,” he remembers, touching the scar at his cheek. “He’d occasionally drop hints about my family, in between…visits from Mathias.”
“Mathias Ackland is a lich,” Leo states quietly. “They require heavy restoration magic to maintain their bodies. We read about it. It makes sense. You were a child prodigy. Clan McKinley used to boast about how good you were at restoration. The Carltons targeted you for that reason.”
Something thick and swollen lodges in my throat, because what he’s saying tracks perfectly. Necromancy. Immortality. Decaying bodies that require regular infusions of restorative magic.
Was Magister Ackland already a lich before I was killed? He was elderly then, but I never asked his age. He kept me painfully isolated from other arcanists and any gossip I might’ve gleaned.
“I think… I think he promised to teach Isidora how to become one,” Jasper murmurs. “I remember overhearing things…snippets. They were so careful to begin with, but towards the end…they became less guarded.”
Because they didn’t think he was going to last much longer. My fists clench at my sides as I recall the conditionhe was in when Dakari brought him here. He was so close to death. Without my help, he wouldn’t have endured much more of what they were putting him through.
“They drove you to burnout by making you heal him, over and over.” I swallow. “Now you’re out of reach, they’ll be forced to find someone else. Other restorationists need to be warned, discreetly. It explains why they’re desperate to recapture you. Your family needs?—”
“No more excuses to tighten my security,” Jasper moans. “Magic, if I tell them this, they’ll hire someone to watch me while I take a shit.”
“Then return to the Arcanaeum,” I offer. “You’re in danger.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” he replies.
“If you’re right, then Kyrith is in danger,” Dakari says, and I jump as I realise he’s snuck up behind me without my noticing.
“That’s a bit of a stretch. He’s been banished from the Arcanaeum for hundreds of years.”
“Knowledge hunger,” Dakari recites. “That was part of lichdom, wasn’t it? This is the greatest depository of knowledge in the world, and you shut him out.”
I tug at my sleeves, hating the cold swirling in my gut at the very idea of being in Ackland’s crosshairs.
